"KEEP BUSTIN'."

Jeepers Creepers

tn_jeeperscreepers
chapter 13

2001posterIf a horror movie is a big hit, and it doesn’t look totally stupid, and especially if it ends up getting theatrically released sequels, I usually watch it at some point, just to give it a shot, or to understand it. For example after a while I sat down and watched all the SAW movies they had made up to that point, even though it was not something I had followed before. As a subscriber to Fangoria Magazine it is my duty. They got those “Chainsaw Awards” you can vote on every year, you want to take that shit seriously. But I always avoided JEEPERS CREEPERS.

Maybe you can guess why. The director is Victor Salva. I remember his movie CLOWNHOUSE being pretty creepy in the ’80s, but years later I read that he was convicted of molesting the kid who starred in it. Salva served his time, I’m not trying to say he doesn’t have the right to make movies. And I don’t want to be that weirdo in the Ain’t It Cool talkbacks who seems to sit around waiting for opportunities to accuse Harry of being a sicko for the rare crime of acknowledging that Roman Polanski is a great filmmaker even though he did something terrible also. Sometimes people can be bad (or have bad things in their past) but make good art, and it’s okay to watch it. Duh.

But I don’t know, man. I read something about Salva’s movie POWDER that said it had pedophilic subtext in it, that it idealizes and camera-ogles hairless male bodies in uncomfortable ways. I haven’t seen the movie, so I’m not saying that’s a fair criticism, I have no idea. But it kept me away. I see even commercial movies as an expression of the personalities and the world views of the people who made them. I guess I just wasn’t up for a peek into the mind of this guy who was lucky enough to have Francis Ford Coppola bankrolling his first movie, still found time for his child porn side project.

But here I am doing this summer of 2001 study, and Salva’s JEEPERS CREEPERS was the last big movie of the summer, released on the last day of August. Genre-wise it’s a little different from the “big summer popcorn movie” I’m trying to focus on, but I consider late August horror movies to be an under-recognized part of the summer tradition. Almost all of the intervening summers have had horror releases in the last half of August, giving us movies like FEARDOTCOM, JEEPERS CREEPERS II, EXORCIST: THE BEGINNING, HALLOWEEN REMAKE, HALLOWEEN REMAKE II, THE FINAL DESTINATION, PIRANHA 3D and THE LAST EXORCISM just in time for people to ask “Why didn’t they wait for Halloween?” This year FINAL DESTINATION 5, FRIGHT NIGHT REMAKE and DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK REMAKE all came out in August.

So I decided to finally break my boycott and watch JEEPERS CREEPERS. Stayed away from the director commentary, though, because those don’t represent the views and opinions of United Artists, who knows what that perv is gonna start talking about?

mp_jeeperscreepersOkay, all that out of the way I’m happy to report that JEEPERS CREEPERS is a solid, clever, original horror movie. I can see why it caught on. It might’ve influenced that movie I like HIGHWAYMEN in its great pacing, its scary use of roads out in the middle of nowhere, and most importantly its escalating weirdness.

The story begins with a bickering brother and sister (Justin Long and Gina Philips) driving the scenic route back from college to their mom’s house in a beat up Impala. After taking some time to show the dynamic between the two, to set up some things about their lives and to get a feel for the open road, the two have a DUEL or ROAD GAMES or beginning of TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 type road incident where a crazy looking old van almost drives them off the road. Okay, that was scary, but everybody’s okay, let’s get on with our lives. Then they drive by an old church and notice the same van parked there. And the driver is out of the van. Dumping something into a big pipe. And the something is a bloody sheet tied around a body-shaped object. Possibly a body. Oh, and he sees them seeing him.

I love how this movie just keeps moving along and revealing more and more oddness. It keeps setting up things in the dialogue that you expect to turn into standard horror movie plotting, but it’s mostly just tricks to fuck with your head. Every time it seems ready to settle into a standard horror movie type some other unexpected thing is ready to come along and change everything. At first it seems like it could be a road-stalker movie like DUEL, ROAD GAMES, THE HITCHER or JOYRIDE. But they go back to look into the pipe, and it becomes a finding-the-evidence-before-the-killer-gets-back, Hansel and Gretel type deal. And they go to the diner and try to get help, so you think it’s gonna be a they’re-telling-the-truth-but-nobody-believes-them. But not long after the cops have heard their crazy story everybody witnesses some guy breaking into their car and sniffing Justin Long’s dirty laundry. “And liking it, from the looks of it.” That’s not something I have seen a Freddy or a Jason or even a Leatherface do before.

Convinced that something weird really is going on here the cops head back to the old church where young Mr. Long has promised a stash of hundreds of corpses, and we’re ready for the ol’ I-swear-they-were-right-here, what-the-hell-is-going-on, you’ve-got-to-believe-me. But again, it’s not going where it seems like it’s going. I’m being free with the spoilers now because this is ten years old, so if you’ve been saving it you might want to stop reading.

I wish I woulda seen this back then because I knew from the magazines that the killer was some kinda monster. That must’ve been a hell of a reveal. It’s still a great moment when the kids are driving toward the church with the cops right behind them and through the back window we can see that motherfucker drop down and land on top of the police car. He punches through the roof, grabs one cop by the top of the head and yanks it off like he’s picking fruit. And then they watch him, you know, kinda… make out with the severed head, and then eat its tongue. You know. One of those type of movies.

Man, sometimes you just run into a person you really would’ve been better off not running into. And these college kids would’ve been better off not running into this crazy-driving, corpse-collecting, dirty-laundry-sniffing, demonically-flying, police-officer-decapitating, severed-head-making-out-with, human-tongue-and-heart-eating sonofabitch. Should’ve just taken the interstate.

There are other weirdos they run into like the psychic who calls them on a payphone, the cat lady with the shotgun. There’s a little bit that reminded me of MAD MAX, a little bit that reminded me of ALIENS. It’s a great tone – proudly absurd, but not tongue in cheek.

I sort of had mixed feelings about the Philips character. She reacts more with anger than with fear, and yells at people too much, making her hard to like. But I sort of appreciate that it makes her different from a standard modern horror gal. She’s got the required cut-off jeans and sleeveless blouse, but not the screaming. When her brother wants to look into the pipe and she says “See, this is why boys are stupid” it seems like a legitimate expression of her bitter personality and not a self-conscious attempt at post-SCREAM horror screenwriting. They both get grating at times, though. Maybe people would be quicker to help them if they wouldn’t yell at everybody.

The IMDb bulletin boards actually led me to some interesting information about this movie. That’s extremely rare, so it’s worth acknowledging. The beginning of the movie has a very urban legend type of feel, but it turns out it comes from a real incident where a brother and sister (older than in the movie) saw a guy driving crazy in a van and later saw the same guy dumping some bloody sheets. The clear connection between the real incident and the movie is that the brother and sister play a game where they make words based on the letters in license plates, and therefore remembered the maniac’s plates.

Specifically the movie must’ve been inspired by an Unsolved Mysteries episode about the case. Instead of starting with the main story of an agitated dude who killed his ex-wife the episode brings us into the story from the perspective of the brother and sister in the van incident. In fact the JEEPERS scene where they see him dumping the body is staged pretty much the same as the sheet-dumping in the episode. Check it out:

As far as they say there is no human-eating demon-man involved, but of course it was an unsolved mystery at the time so maybe more information came out later. So they really shoulda called this “based on a true story.”

So, being partly an adaptation of a real murder, and being written and directed by a convicted child molester, and now that I think about it having a guy enjoy smelling Justin Long’s dirty laundry, it is hard for me to recommend this as a really fun horror movie. But that’s exactly what it is if you look at the movie on its own. Definitely one of the best movies of summer of 2001.

* * *

legacy: there is a JEEPERS CREEPERS 2 and they’re supposedly working on a part 3. Salva directed the sequel and a weird inspirational 2006 movie called PEACEFUL WARRIOR. Justin Long has gone on to become a much bigger star, mostly in comedy, but was in another good horror movie, DRAG ME TO HELL.

datedness: I don’t think it’s as stuck in a specific time period as many teen horror movies are. The cars are already retro, the kids look and dress similar to the kids in the later Michael Bay produced shitty horror remakes, they don’t have a bunch of pop culture references in the dialogue or anything like that.

would they make this now? Yeah, they would do a remake because the name sounds familiar.

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105 Responses to “Jeepers Creepers”

  1. I agree that this was surprisingly enjoyable. I believe that there will always be room for a new, good great highway horror film. In fact, I watched a British Lottery funded film recently called Hush that I will not say was a classic, but it was still better than a fair piece of theatrical releases I have seen this year. Hush basically played as somewhere between Duel and High Tension except it wisely avoids the bullshit ending that negates all of the suspense that preceded it.

    Any plans on Creepers 2? Because I would rather wait and discuss that movie in the proper context.

  2. I own very few horror movies, but I own this one. Part of the appeal is its aggressive oddness – the sense that anything can happen, and does. Part of it is the neat symmetry between the evolution of the story and the Creeper, both constantly shifting into nifty new shapes. Part of it is the intelligence and inventiveness on display. I remember being disappointed by the second film because the story stops evolving and becomes a standard teens-under-siege plot without the hairpin turns of the original. Here’s hoping that a third installment ditches the higher body count in the sequel and returns to the unpredictability of the first film.

  3. I remember when the movie hit #1 (or #2?) at the US Box office, suddenly you could read in several German newspapers that “A German movie was a success in the USA!” Apparently this one was co-founded by a German company and since my country desperately tries get a foot into Hollywood’s door, this was already a success for some people.

    I also remember that the ending was a huge dealbreaker for many. Even I was kinda annoyed for a few minutes by how sudden it stops cold, but all in all I think it’s a good ending.

  4. This to me is a great example of the “watch it every 5th or 6th Halloween” type of horror movie, like you described DON’T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK. (Literally, I think I saw ti once in theaters and twice on DVD in the past decade.) Fun, clever, well-made (even a little suspenseful in the early going), and it’s got a great final scene. I wouldn’t blame anyone for staying away because of Salva’s crimes, but they’re missing out on a real gem that doesn’t seem to have the reputation it deserves.

  5. Yeah I remember thinking it was pretty good, although I’m always disappointed when original, interesting fears that drive most of a movie turn into cliche monsters at the end (I’m looking at you, Descent). But Peaceful Warrior creeped me out: the story of an “inspirational” friendship between an older man and a young athlete, made by a filmmaker with a conviction for raping a young boy. I could just picture Salvo audtioning the kids to play the young gymnast, “Yeah, now take your shirt off. Now look up and go, ‘Whatever you say, Daddy!'” I’d almost have more respect for him if he just cut the bullshit and made a movie like L.I.E., instead of trying to sneak his shit past us by making it not EXACTLY about child rape, just metaphorically.

    Wait, what were we talking about? Oh yeah, scary movies. I spose if I come across Jeepers Creepers for free I won’t cross the street to avoid it, see how I feel about it 10 years later. Thanks for taking this bullet for the team, Vern!

  6. Didn’t I hear that they switched the brother and sister roles in the script? Maybe that’s why the dynamic was a little different than usual. Like how Ripley was written as a man and they didn’t change the dialogue after they made her a woman.

    This would also explain the brother’s tramp stamp.

    Are you going to move on to the second one, Vern? That one’s not as scary, but it’s a fun romp with some good sequences, and I like that most of it happens in the daytime. All the shots of shirtless teenage boys glistening in the sun might have been ill-advised, though. And you might want to skip the special features. Salva looks every bit the pedophile with his pervy mustache and Hawaiian shirt, and everyone makes it a point to go on about how good he is with teen actors. Moral: Do your research before you edit together your promotional featurettes.

  7. Of course, there’s also that interesting theory that the JEEPERS CREEPERS movies have a weird, pseudo-pedophilia subtext to them. The monster (I believe called “The Creeper” by the filmmakers, though I submit that “Jeepers” would be a much better name) seems to have a penchant for young men, especially in the sequel, where he attacks a busload of high schoolers and seems to specifically direct his attention to the frequently shirtless boys. There’s that whole creepy, kinda sexual thing we’re he likes to sniff them, and he seems to fetishize particular parts of their bodies (that he later eats and makes part of his own body.) I guess the theory is that Jeepers represents Salva’s dark side, lusting after the bodies of young boys, unable to control his desires, stealing their innocence, yadda yadda. It’s probably a bunch of glib horseshit, but it does add a weird layer to the movies.

  8. Just like with Polanski, i can’t watch this guy’s movies. But at least this guy did his time and didn’t run away. I’ll give him that.

  9. As a child I grew up within a quarter mile of that church in the movie. For years it was vacant and was only used for small weddings before it burnt down one or two years after JEEPERS CREEPERS was filmed. I remembered growing up near it on a horse farm and one night traveled in a thunderstorm with some friends to find it. We weren’t able to see it at first, but on cue, lightning flashed and there it was. It was a fun moment and also creeped me out.

    Regarding Salva, word was that he intended to film the sequel in the same parts of Florida (Dunnellon, Levy & Marion County), but because those places ‘treated him unfairly’ he promised to never work here again. Here’s a link to an article showing concerns of his being a “convicted child molester who once videotaped himself having oral sex with a 12-year-old actor in California” and I honestly can’t say I blame them for that. http://www.vachss.com/mission/salva2.html

    Also, growing up and going to high school in a small town where you’d have to drive those same roads in the movie to get to any part of civilization with a bookstore or movie theater was very eerie sometimes. It was 20-30 miles from anything like that. I’ve had a few weird experiences on the roads over the years. After seeing the movie they admittedly were a bit heightened.

  10. If the lingering shots of hairless, shirtless guys kept you away from Powder, then by all means stay away from Jeepers Creepers 2. It’s got some LOGO-ccentric shots of guys suntanning together and pissing on the side of the road while standing elbow-to-elbow. It’s uh… different.

  11. Oh shit, he’s got Andrew Vacchss after him? Run for the hills, Victor. That is one scary motherfucker. In case you are unfamiliar with this crime novelist/lawyer/activist/dude who gets really, really pissed off when people fuck with kids, this is his author photo:

    http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_4pmUNQE7llI/SAXxed-oPgI/AAAAAAAABKg/mqGgxnRpkL8/s400/vachss2.jpg

    The attack dog actually makes him look LESS scary.

  12. I saw this on video almost ten years ago and although my memory is a bit fuzzy, I do remember it being a lot better than I expected

    of course at the time I had no idea the director was a pedophile, needless to say I was very creeped out when I discovered that fact on imdb one day

  13. Vern, if you want to read some interesting crime fiction written by the dude that Mr. Majestyk referenced before, check out some Burke novels by Andrew Vachss. He could not fit your Badass profile more, in my opinion. You could start with the first novel, but Blue Belle is way better and fills you in on everything you need to know. It’s also obvious that this dude has worked with damaged individuals and doesn’t judge them as the people the are in the least. Plus, as I said, Burke is a fantastic character in fiction, and beyond Badass.

  14. Blue Belle is the second Burke book, since I just forgot to point that out.

  15. Goddammit!!! I mean THIRD. . .I should just shut up. Flood and Strega are the first.

  16. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:AVachss_honey.jpg

    THAT’S the dude who wrote the books. Good luck not reading them now. I believe I have redeemed myself.

  17. Eyepatch = literary as balls.

  18. And I agree, BLUE BELLE is the best of the Burke books I’ve read so far.

  19. Jeepers Creepers is an excellent example of “the male gaze.” The theory has fallen out of favor in recent decades, but when you see a pedophilia, homoerotic male gaze…well it makes it pretty clear to even the most detached viewer.

    As far as I am concerned, Salva gets a pass. He committed a crime, (he performed oral sex on a teenage boy and filmed it), went to jail, and came back out. As far as any of us know he has not offended again. With his notoriety, he likely would have been caught if he had. It seems to me that he has used his films as a sort of therapy. My reading of the Jeepers Creepers films was always that Salva himself was the Creeper. The film is potent because it is his own personal demon that the protagonists are fighting.

    To me, Salva is a lot more socially acceptable than Polanski, who drugged, raped and sodomized a 13-year old girl, then used the murder of his wife and the holocaust as excuses for his crimes before fleeing the country and continuing to fuck 15-year old girls whom he had intense and specific coercive power over for another few decades.

    Polanski is the better filmmaker, to be sure, but he gets a pass primarily because he liked girls instead of boys.

  20. I don’t know Tawdry, the boy was 12. That’s barely a teenager, imo.

    Clown House is still sitting on my shelf. Halfway through it, I got weird vibes, did some IMDBing, and saw it’s history. I had bought it cuz Sam Rockwell was in it, but dang. It’s hard to get past some things.

    Also, Vachs looks like a Bond villain.

  21. This movie had the best use of old timey music until that fucking Darth Maul looking demon in Insidious was sitting around jamming out to Tulips.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls-1SmeCheE
    creepy shit

    My favorite part of this movie, although I haven’t seen it in years, is the reveal of that room being lined in all the skins of the Mr. Creeperss’ victims.

    And I’d agree with the rest of the commenters that the sequel is way less effective but still a pretty good way to kill a few hours.

  22. I think Tawdry’s interpretation is correct: Salva is contending with himself as the demon in these films. The child predator subtext seems fairly intentional in the sequel. That one actually works more as a pure monster movie than the original (which loses its initial footing once the mystery is resolved, and it falls into those genre tropes), but both movies seem to come from a place of genuine disturbance, which is missing in a lot of mainstream horror. They’re both fairly underrated.

  23. I remember seeing this in the theatre and being really let down by the ending. Not the fact that the bad guy wins, I always kind of appreciate that, but it seemed like there was another 10 minutes of movie that was supposed to take place and it got cut somehow.

    Speaking of which, the notion of the Creeper as a surrogate for Salva’s demons is really disturbing if you connect it with the fact that he gets away with it in the end and can never be stopped…

  24. I watched NATURE OF THE BEAST with Lance Heriksen and Eric Roberts of late unaware of the whole Salva paedo business, but there’s a scene where Roberts is taking about how a dude has needs that takes on whole layers of extra shit knowing that.

  25. Yep. I have to agree that this movie is pretty underrated and takes on a whole lot of subtext when you know about Salva’s past, but that’s probably what also gave it its effective creepiness even when watching it without knowing about Salva beforehand.

    And agreed about the Burke novels by Vachss. He’s a bonafide badass himself writing about a hard as nails badass and is exactly right up your alley, Vern.

  26. I think “literary as balls” should be a prerequisite for Badass authors from now on, Majestyk. Stark, Hunter, etc.

  27. I really liked the first…2/3 of the movie. Then at the end it degenerated into a basic monster movie with a rather bad looking monster. Not that I mind monster movies, it’s just that the sense of dread and atmosphere that the movie had sustained up until that point was just GONE. Like, for the first 2/3 of the movie it’s like the monster wants them dead because they KNOW about him and he wants to keep his existence secret or whatnot. Then at the end it reveals he’s basically invincible, openly assaults a police station and grabs the main dude right in front of plenty of witnesses, so why the fuck does he bother hiding shit to begin with? Just left me disappointed in the ending(in it’s defense, the ending didn’t piss me off NEARLY as much as High Tension), if it had sustained the quality level of the first 2/3 or so of the movie up until the end, I would rate it a modern classic rather than just a fun horror movie.

  28. Also: Can you have a Vanity Plate made in 23 days, and did The Creeper have to go to the DMV to update his tags? (I seem to remember them being current).

  29. Mr Majestyk> “Salva looks every bit the pedophile with his pervy mustache and Hawaiian shirt.” You mean Magnum looked like a nonce?

  30. I remember seeing this at the cinema, and thought it was pretty decent, although the ending was rather abrupt (but nice and dark). The sequel is rather fun too. I recently saw a Spanish/Argentinian horror called Apericidos (The Appeared), which reminded me a lot of Jeepers.

  31. Ace – Thomas Magnum has the rich, thick mustache of a man who only makes love to beautiful women of legal age. I will not hear a disparaging word against it.

  32. I think the abruptness of the ending is one of the best parts. You’re kind of expecting there to be, like, 10 more minutes left, where the sister tracks Jeepers back to his lair to fight it to the death and save her brother. Instead SPOILERS nope, her brother dies a horrifying death and Jeepers has taken his eyeballs. THE END.

    Awesome.

  33. I never got around to seeing this film. I was also unaware of the directors strange peccadilloes (i.e. horrifying crimes). Sometimes it’s tough to separate the director from the films. I know people who are strangely wary of Woody Allen’s movies, even though what he did was creepy, but not illegal, but at the same time they can overlook the Roman Polanski’s name on Roman Polanski movies. I suppose, it’s easier to forget about Polanski while watching one of his films, but because Allen either stars in his films or uses some sort of acting avatar, it’s impossible to forget about Woody Allen. As a fan of Polanski’s movies, I have always been a bit torn. I love his films but I also agree that he should be in jail.

  34. I only read one Vachss book rather a long time back, but I have to say I didn’t enjoy it much. The problem for me in that book (and I don’t remember the title) was that he handled the child porno ring in a very straight forward and interesting manner, but when it came to the tough guy stuff it became very pulpy and rather lame. Am I really remembering correctly that he had a mute Indian side kick? I really wish he had made the book either more straight or more pulp.
    Maybe I’ll check out the volume MacReady liked and see if it’s any better.

  35. Burke does indeed have a mute sidekick named Max the Silent. And he’s unconscionably awesome. For a while, it was in vogue for detective fiction to have a Chewbacca-like character who was even more hardcore than the hero. Spenser had Hawk, Easy Rawlins had Mouse, and Burke had Max. Obviously, Max is my favorite because being more hardcore than Burke basically means you’re more hardcore then seven vikings welded together into a superviking with chainsaws for teeth.

  36. I remember seeing this film in theaters without know anything about Salva’s history and I really liked the movie. It is a fun flick. However, when I found out Salva was a pedophile it made me look at the movie in an entirely different way, and it creeped me out. I have not watched the film since and I avoided the sequel, but after reading this review I am tempted to watch it again

  37. I remember the weekend this movie came out. It was either this or THE MUSKETEER.

    I chose…poorly.

  38. All they sold THE MUSKETEER on was the Yuen Woo-Ping fight choreography, so that was an honest mistake at the time.

  39. I often associate JEEPERS CREEPERS with John Dahl’s pretty great thriller JOY RIDE, which opened a few weeks later. It has a similar vibe to the first (superior) half of JC.

    I like Vern’s comment about Gina Philips yelling at everyone in this movie. It’s so true. She even shouts at her mom over the payphone.

    I just wish the Creeper drove a jeep.

  40. I might have actually seen this and THE MUSKETEER in a double feature that weekend.

    I don’t really remember anything about THE MUSKETEER except that I hated it. Maybe it was just a shitty projector bulb, but I remember it being one of the dimmest, ugly looking movies I have ever seen in the theater.

    My friends and I sneaked in to avoid paying, and then an usher came in and kicked some other kids out sitting in the row behind us, and I thought we were caught too but we lucked out. That provided pretty much the only excitement and entertainment during the whole movie.

  41. Jake> I mean no offence to the mu-stash or to Magnum PI.

  42. The cinematography of THE MUSKETEER would have been fine if it didn’t completely obscure the action. It would have worked in a drama but not an action film. However, form actually did follow function in this case. The lighting had to be dark and contrasty so that the faces of the obviously Asian stuntmen could be obscured by the shadows from their big floppy hats.

  43. The Musketeer is one of those really tragic failures. I wanted to see badass kinetic Musketeer action. It really looked like they could have gone the Errol Flynn route but used Asian action sensibility for the action scenes. It should have been AWESOME.

  44. I sure hope the monster isn’t a representation of Victor Salva because that means somebody is getting molested in 2012. (the monster comes out every spring every 23 years. That’s next year in Clownhouse terms)

  45. “Max The Silent”

    now why is that name familiar? I think that was someone’s screen name on AICN or something

  46. well I imagine everybody’s heard about seagal and his tv show and the breaking into somebody’s house and the killing of chickens and puppies (puppies!).
    Not being a watcher of his tv show but being a big fan of his filmatistic work I find this massively depressing. It’s a long way from 7th dan black belt and the first westerner to achieve ultimate shogun of Aikido; to murdering puppies in a tank while looking like a partially melted thunderbirds puppet.

  47. Weirdly, I’ve never seen this one. Might give it a shot though, sounds pretty decent.

    Acton Jackson – I’ve heard, but I didn’t quite believe it, even of Seagal. I mean, puppies? It’s gotta be a wind-up.

  48. Re: Andrew Vacchs – I definitely respect his convictions, and the fact that he can write novels. I tried a few of them and found them to be set in a very exaggerrated world with very exaggerrated characters. There was one thing that really stood out for me, though, in his novel DOWN IN THE ZERO. Repeating from memory, the last line of the novel SPOILERS goes something like this:

    “I wonder if she saw the zero on the way down.”
    “I wonder if she blinked.”

    That still gives me chills.

    Jeepers Creepers: I had already known about Victor Salva because I had read a really bizarre book about Disney called “The Mouse Betrayed”, but when I watched JC I didn’t notice his name on the credits, so I didn’t know it was him.

    Watching it, I was struck at first by how gruff and unpleasant the girl was, and how unsexy she was, despite her little tops and heavy makeup. I was also struck by how heavy the Justin Long character laid on his “nice, sweet and gullible” shtick, almost as cow-like as Nova from the old Planet of the Ape movies, and I didn’t get what was going on yet, so it just struck me as weird.

    It was the scene where he goes down into the monster’s lair and finds the previous victim with the stitches across his belly that really struck me as overtly pervy, because of how the victim looked (more heavily made up and greased up then mutilated) and the weird sucking way he sounded when he tried to talk, and slow way that scene was filmed with the two boys together. After that, I knew this was something perverts had snuck into the multiplex.

    So, for the rest of the movie, I watched as the girl was portrayed as a mean shrew and the justin long was portrayed as almost suicidally gullible jailbait, and if no other scene made the gay predator subject obvious, the one where he monster has the girl cornered and leans in close, sniffes her, and storms off in disgust should have made it crystal clear. Then when I saw his name at the end I remembered what I’d read about him and the whole movie made sense.

    The Verdict: No, I do not give him a pass. Since I am against the kind of criminal behavior he committed, I’m against the idea of him making a fantasy version of it and what gets him off and passing it off as what many here have called a “fun romp”. It’s like if a serial killer made a multiplex movie about serial killing starring Ashton Kutcher and Kate Bosworth.

  49. Yeah, but I’d watch that. How could you not?

  50. Okay, but only if David Paymer is the cop who only has 48 hours to take Kutcher down.

  51. Jeepers Creepers is a pretty damned good horror movie. The only thing about it’s sequel that I thought lived up to the original was the opening scene. I thought there were some good parts here and there with the sequel but overall it reminded me of Hypercube in terms of declining quality while bringing nothing new to the story.

  52. I don’t know man. I’m obviously against child molesters and even though I know that some of those crimes are committed, because the abusers lost a fight against a tragic psychological disorder, instead of being just jerks who think that it’s fun to rape someone who is smaller and weaker, I do think that this is one of those crimes that can’t be settled by putting the guy in jail for a few years. People like Salva shouldn’t be allowed to work anymore. At the least.

    But to be honest, the way how Salva’s movies are often dissected, leaves a pretty bad taste in my mouth. It’s like some people really WANT to find any hints of perviness in them! So that they can point at them and yell “Eeew”! Yeah, JEEPERS is all about a monster which is after a young boy, but I learned to live by the rule “Sometime is a cigar just a cigar”.

  53. Salva is a success case. He went to jail, reformed and turned his personal demons into art. As near as any of us know he has not reoffended. Polanski meanwhile just used his art to feed his personal demons. He fled the country and then spent like 2 decades fucking 15-year old girls whom he had extreme coercive power over. He dumped all of them by the time they turned 17.

    Now, I’m no prude and I know that cultural norms are just that, cultural norms. They are not inherently right or wrong, but you know what? Allow me to be the stick in the mud who says, “No, I’m not cool with a 50-year old man who has previously used date rape drugs to have his way with barely pubescent girls gallivanting around. I’m not willing to bury my head and pretend that his ‘relationships’ with 15-year old actresses whom he employs are totally kosher.”

    I get it. Sometimes young girls are hot. Sometimes they even look 18. Lord knows I’ve had impure thoughts about Winona Ryder in Heathers (which I justify by the fact that I first saw that movie at 15 and Ryder is like 20 years my senior) But a 15-year old girl, even a very busty one, is not even close to 18 psychologically. Or forget 18, she’s not even close to whatever age you think is appropriate for her to start fucking a 50-year old man who has direct power over her.

    And yet Polanski did basically that and ONLY that for about 2 decades after he made his ‘one time mistake’ in Jack Nicholson’s hot tub.

    I’ve never spent money on a Salva movie or a Polanski movie and I don’t plan on ever doing so, but Salva is clearly morally ‘superior’ in this case. Much of the trepidation that people feel toward him is because he raped a boy. If Polanski’s victim had been a boy, he would never have been forgiven. On a purely analytical level, Polanski’s crime is a lot more offensive, far more invasive and far more violent.

  54. CJ…did you SEE Jeepers Creepers 2? The film is VERY gay and VERY twink oriented.

  55. I`m kinda amused over people reading a pedo-subtext into Jeepers Creepers. If the brother and sisters charactes had been switched, as originally written, nobody would have raised an eyebrow, since we are used to young woman being sexualized in horrormovies. But Justin Langs character is not a child in the movie, so even if the director is a reformed pedo, his movies are merely homosexuel, not pedophiliael. I really can`t see the diffence between a friday the 13th movie and Jeepers Creepers 2, ecxept for a bit of subversive gender-switching.

    I must admit that I`m kinda a conflicted about Polanski. He did rape a young girl (who was already sexual active and experienced with drugs), but I wouldn`t be suprised if he was borderline insane at that point in time. The love of his life (which was his age) had recently been murdered, which doesn`t escuse his actions, but must have messed him up pretty bad. And he did plead guilty and was preprered to serve his time, but chose to flee the country when the judge decided to turn the case into a media-circus for his own benefit. He didn`t run from his punishment, he fled an unjust trial.

    Woody Allen, on the other hand.. Jeez, what a creep…

  56. Yeah, I remember that gayness in Jeepers Creepers 2. All those naked boys, kissing and buttfucking each other. Even I was kinda offended by that.

    But no, seriously, I don’t get how shirtless men, doesn’t matter how old or good looking they are, equal gay subtext. (Or do you mean Ray Wise with the fucking big harpoon? That was kinda phallic, if you ask me.) That’s like saying that every director, who shows boobs in his movie, is automatically a perv who likes to hang out at locker rooms to watch them ladies shower through a hole in the wall.

  57. Don’t be obstinate. The film is clearly queer themed. The casting alone, man. They’re twinks. Every single one, iirc. That’s like pretending there isn’t a sexual subtext to David LaChapelle’s photographs of Britney Spears: http://ulfablabla.free.fr/images/2007/juillet/lachapelle/Musique/Britney%20Spears%20PORTRAIT%20OF%20A%20YOUNG%20POP%20STAR%20ON%20THE%20VERGE%20OF%20SUCCESS.jpg yup. No subtext there at all.

    Just because the boys don’t have cocks in their mouths doesn’t mean the implication isn’t clear.

    The boys, who are made to look sexually potent, but still like *boys* are shown in bits and pieces with close-ups that fetishize their adolescent features. And I don’t mean that as a slight to the film. I’m a big fan of Larry Clark, Todd Solondz, Catherine Breillat. To pretend that there isn’t a distinct and undeniable sexuality to the film is just silly.

    DNA: Honestly, your comments make me very uncomfortable. Like, they would be out of line on AiCN.

    Sharon Tate had been murdered TEN YEARS PRIOR. To say that he gets to rape a child because something awful happened a full decade before…I donno that I buy that, especially when he had been actively dating for years before the incident in question. The 42 day sentence was a sweetheart deal that he only got because of his fame. To claim that a 42 day sentence for drugging, raping and sodomizing a child is ‘justice’ is…I don’t even know what to call that. Sure, the trail he was looking down was also sure to be unfair, but to whitewash the original plea bargain is if it were hunky-dory is disingenuous, to say the least. Two wrongs don’t make a right, but don’t create false parallels. Also, easy way to avoid sensationalized court cases: don’t rape children. It’s a pretty easy rule to follow, in my opinion.

    What does it matter that Polanski’s victim was sexually active and a drug user? How is that relevant? Because she was acting out and likely a victim of previous abuse doesn’t mean she can’t be raped. In fact, I’d wager that continuing the cycle of abuse is more egregious. We’ve all heard these arguments before and when they get down to brass tax they never amount to anything more than a ‘short skirt’ argument in the most grotesque form.

    As for Allen. He’s weird and kinda creepy, but he has also been with Soon-Yi, who was not a child and never his daughter or adopted daughter for almost 20 years. Maybe they know something we don’t. But to even mention that in the same breath as forcible rape of a barely-teenage girl…seriously? Are we going there?

  58. Tawdry: I wasn’t sure how to feel about your use of the word “twink,” so I asked a gay friend of mine for her opinion. She said that you need to have a very high homochlorian count to use the word properly. Otherwise you will be vulnerable to the Dark Side.

    Just thought you’d like to know.

  59. That scene of shirtless dudes shoulder to shoulder peeing at the same time is possibly the gayest thing ever filmed (including gay porn).

    I liked Jeeprs Creepers to a point, but to me when they revealed the monster it just got corny and cheesy. Like, the humor was played up, the monster killed a guy and whistles while he gets the head, etc etc. It was disappointing because up until then the movie was really firing. And the goofy cat lady…ugh. It was still okay, but after the reveal seemed more like one of the goofier Nightmare on Elm Street sequels, maybe the 5th.

  60. No offense to some of my fellow outlawverndotcomrades, but when something like a shot of a few guys taking a piss (without even showing their dicks) makes your gay bell ring, you really need to get more comfortable with your sexuality, doesn’t matter what it is.

  61. Tawdry, I don’t think anyone here is defending Polanski.

    As for “Salva gets a pass. He committed a crime, (he performed oral sex on a teenage boy and filmed it), went to jail, and came back out. As far as any of us know he has not offended again,” I don’t know man. You obviously feel strong about the Polanski situation, but I don’t see how you can’t apply those same feelings towards the poor kid that Salva raped. I hope you’re not saying it’s okay cuz he was a boy. Getting raped in the mouth or anywhere else isn’t good, male or female. I know your main point is that society is sexist when it comes to the issue, but time served or not, Salva shouldn’t be able to work again, same as Polanski.

  62. The pissing scene doesn’t bother me. But come on, man…tell me CJ, are you straight? If so, and you had to do ol’ number 2 in a field with a bunch of other shirtless guys…would you each find your own general corner, or would you stand as close as possible to each other , touching shoulders? I’m sorry, but it’s not like saying the Hobbits are gay because they’re really close friends.

  63. Another unsettlingly predatory element in the Jeepers Creepers sequel: When the monster rips off one kid’s head, he also takes his shirt, and then the shirtless body stands there dancing for like a minute before it falls down.

  64. I donno that criminals should be blacklisted from art. What he did was terrible. Yes. I do not spend money on his films as a result. Saying who is ‘allowed’ to make movies is a witch hunt. I think Arthur Miller wrote a pretty good play about that once.

  65. Eddie: I don’t see that as predatory, I see that as a cool gimmick. Shirtless decapitation is more impressive, you know?

    Jareth, I think I’ve had sex with enough lesbians to use the word Twink properly. It’s not a slur, it’s a subculture, kinda. Like Bears. Or Leather Daddys. But seriously, read a Bret Easton Ellis novel and you’ll find out all about this stuff.

  66. This discussion is gayer than nine guys blowing eight guys.

  67. I’m as straight as the next heterosexual here, but while I don’t demand from my buddies to stand next to me when we are all taking a piss, I wouldn’t mind, because come on, I’ve seen them all naked more than once in the gym shower and it’s just peeing. Shit, I went to public bathrooms where the pissoirs where so close to each other, that complete strangers almost accidently pissed on my dick! Now THAT’S unsettling, but not necessarily gay.
    Okay, in all fairness, I got a pretty open relationship to my sexuality and homosexuality, going even so far that when some bullies try to provoke me by calling me a fag or something like that, I most of the time just reply with: “Yes, I’m totally gay, how did you notice. Wanna fuck?” I’m also confident enough to not get uncomfortable when I see a naked man. A few weeks ago I had some kind of acting-ish gig, where I had to spend several days pretending to be naked by wearing a very skimpy thong. But three other guys went even so far to really pull out their dicks and have a “swordfight” (Yes, they where whipping each other with their dicks!), because the script called for them to do something stupid while they were acting drunk and that’s what they improvised on the spot. I wouldn’t go that far, but man, that’s progressive, if you ask me. And don’t forget JACKASS, where a bunch of hetero guys spend much of their time rubbung against each other naked.
    What I’m trying to say is: It’s okay when (male) nudity, even just the thought of it or just something like taking a piss while standing next to your buddy is making you uncomfortable. Not everybody is a born exhibitionist. But two dicks at the same spot are not necessarily gay. This is 2011, man.

  68. Apparently my last comment is awaiting moderation, because I used a homophobic slur, that starts with an f and is in the UK used for cigarettes. I just post it again without the word:

    I’m as straight as the next heterosexual here, but while I don’t demand from my buddies to stand next to me when we are all taking a piss, I wouldn’t mind, because come on, I’ve seen them all naked more than once in the gym shower and it’s just peeing. Shit, I went to public bathrooms where the pissoirs where so close to each other, that complete strangers almost accidently pissed on my dick! Now THAT’S unsettling, but not necessarily gay.
    Okay, in all fairness, I got a pretty open relationship to my sexuality and homosexuality, going even so far that when some bullies try to provoke me by calling me a f** or something like that, I most of the time just reply with: “Yes, I’m totally gay, how did you notice. Wanna fuck?” I’m also confident enough to not get uncomfortable when I see a naked man. A few weeks ago I had some kind of acting-ish gig, where I had to spend several days pretending to be naked by wearing a very skimpy thong. But three other guys went even so far to really pull out their dicks and have a “swordfight” (Yes, they where whipping each other with their dicks!), because the script called for them to do something stupid while they were acting drunk and that’s what they improvised on the spot. I wouldn’t go that far, but man, that’s progressive, if you ask me. And don’t forget JACKASS, where a bunch of hetero guys spend much of their time rubbung against each other naked.
    What I’m trying to say is: It’s okay when (male) nudity, even just the thought of it or just something like taking a piss while standing next to your buddy is making you uncomfortable. Not everybody is a born exhibitionist. But two dicks at the same spot are not necessarily gay. This is 2011, man.

  69. I believe you meant eight guys blowing nine.

  70. Perhaps this can help clear up the whole debate:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiPyMciRWQQ

  71. these comments need the proper soundtrack http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNUSify3Qa4

    “That’s like saying that every director, who shows boobs in his movie, is automatically a perv who likes to hang out at locker rooms to watch them ladies shower through a hole in the wall.”

    I’m pretty sure every heterosexual male on Earth would do that if they had the chance, that’s not really a “pervy” thing

  72. “That scene of shirtless dudes shoulder to shoulder peeing at the same time is possibly the gayest thing ever filmed (including gay porn). ”
    What about the poolside simultaneous jacking off scene from Y TU MAMA TAMBIEN? Which makes the later revulsion these two show the night after having a threeway kinda dumb.

  73. CJ, I think your problem is confusing being uncomfortable with something and merely making a simple observation. Like, I think the scene where Viggo is buck naked and fighting some guys in the sauna in Eastern Condors does not come off gay. And you saw some dick there. But do you think your open mindedness is actually blinding you to the idea that maybe just possibly the movie made by the gay director who was convicted for molesting a child, might have some gay subtext in it? All of those scenes of hairless boys running around with their shirts off in every movie Salva made is just totally completely random?

    And I’m sure Hugh Hefner doesn’t like naked women.

  74. Dan:

    Dammit I knew if I tried to quote Patton Oswalt that i’d fuck it up.

  75. Did Vern review the Piano? Because, all this Polanski stuff might actually be relevant over there.

    As far as Salva, gay is one thing. There are lots of gay movies that aren’t offensive or creepy. Salva’s JC is quite another thing, because it is creepy and pervy in addition to it’s gayness, maybe that vibe hits you even if you don’t know it’s his movie like it did me, or maybe you don’t pick up on it.

    Someone brought up a good point, as far as if it were a movie with the monster stalking the young girl it wouldn’t even be an issue, and that’s true, EXCEPT if we learned that the director had actually stalked and raped a 12 year old girl then I think we’d all kind of back away from it.

  76. Mr. Doctor: The thing is at first that being pedophile doesn’t equal being gay. The second thing is that while I won’t deny that Salva maybe puts some pedophilia subtext in his movies, unintentional or not, his films are also full of things that you can find everywhere else, only that because we know about his past, we look at it different.
    Every single teenie slasher of the last decade is full of good looking young actors, who show off their hairless sixpacks and glisten in the sun or the moonlight in at least one scene, because that’s what is considered attractive by the society! You won’t see the fat hairy dudes running around semi-naked anywhere, unless it’s for comedic effect. But people tend to look at everything you do thrice, as soon as they know one detail too much about you.
    Like I said, I mostly live by “Sometimes a cigar, is just a cigar”. I’m not a fan of analyzing things to death, because if you do it long enough, the result is always what you want it to be, and not what it really is. I’m glad that Salva didn’t make his remake of THE BLOB, that he was slated to do a while ago, otherwise it would be understood as a movie about the fear of ejaculation.

  77. tawdry

    I agree with most of your points, but I don`t think I was being as pro-rape/pedo as you make it sound.

    “Sharon Tate had been murdered TEN YEARS PRIOR. To say that he gets to rape a child because something awful happened a full decade before…I donno that I buy that, especially when he had been actively dating for years before the incident in question.”

    I had the impression that it was a couple of years later, but that still doesn`t give him a green rapey card. I don`t think that a traumatized life excuses any hurtful behavior, but it might make it easier to understand what he did.

    “The 42 day sentence was a sweetheart deal that he only got because of his fame. To claim that a 42 day sentence for drugging, raping and sodomizing a child is ‘justice’ is…I don’t even know what to call that. ”

    I agree, except for the child-part. She was an experienced teenager. Again, I`m not defending his actions, he raped a minor, but that doesn`t make him a pedophile. She might have appeared older to him than she actually was. It was still rape, though, and should have put him behind bars for many years.

    “What does it matter that Polanski’s victim was sexually active and a drug user? How is that relevant? Because she was acting out and likely a victim of previous abuse doesn’t mean she can’t be raped. In fact, I’d wager that continuing the cycle of abuse is more egregious. We’ve all heard these arguments before and when they get down to brass tax they never amount to anything more than a ’short skirt’ argument in the most grotesque form.”

    Again, I`m not trying to defend his crime, he raped a young girl, but I`m not sure he percieved her as a child (as in Polanski is a rapist, but I don`t think he is a pedophile.) He is clearly attracted to young girls, and acted on it in an time that was less aware of the consequences of abuse than our decade. I don`t know a lot about his girlfriends, but I know he was in a relationship with Natasja Kinski when she was 15. Did the relationship damage her? We don`t know, but if it didn`t, the relationship was a victimless crime. Should he be punished if it was a victimless crime? Constant accusations of him being a pedophile is a sort of public punishment.

    I`m basically against “young girls and old men” relationship and find them creepy, but some of the girls I know, who has actually been in these kind of relationships, don`t always agree with me, so I try to keep that in mind when I go all judgemental and stuff.

    I`m not advocating pedorape, blaming the victim or claiming that Polanski was innocent, but I don`t percieve Polanski as a pedophile either. But he did rape a young girl and that`s horrible. But that`s 33 years ago and I do believe that people can change and deserve a second chance.

  78. Pedophilia is a rather commonly misused term, as the actual meaning of the word is defined as being sexually interested in prepubescent children. Polanski is a rapist – and probably a serial rapist as there are several women who claim he has raped them – But he is not a pedophile. He definitely comes off as an ephebophile (attracted to teenagers between ages 15-19) and a hebephile (attracted to teens between ages 11-14).

    The point is that Polanski doesn’t rape children. He only rapes teenagers (and adults) who are already sexually active and capable of bearing children.

    It also seems that Victor Salva is not interested in children, but prefers teenage boys instead. And while Polanski has a preference for rape, Salva apparently tries to lure his victims into consensual sex, and is not attracted to rape.

  79. Obviously being pedophile doesn’t equal being gay. Just that when you have a convicted pedo who molested a boy, then that gives you a bit of information. And when you see tons of young shirtless boys all touching each other for an entire movie, you can draw some conclusions from that. Honestly, saying “it’s just a cigar” in this context is more like saying “I don’t want to think at all about this.”

    As to your counter that slasher movies will show lots of buff young dudes running around with their shirts off…okay, maybe so to an extent. But that’s usually in the same scenes where a bunch of women are running around in bikinis (the actual pretext for the scene). Oh, and how many of these guys tend to have lengthy shower scenes or long scenes of them changing or sex scenes that focus primarily on them? Compare actual female nudity to male nudity in movies.

    I mean, I work in movies. This stuff doesn’t just randomly happen.

  80. dna — **”But he did rape a young girl and that`s horrible. But that`s 33 years ago and I do believe that people can change and deserve a second chance.”**

    Polanski’s not on any 2nd chance. He never served his time. Give me an assistant operator, a cargo bird with a runway within 500 miles of his location, and a week’s worth of SIGINT, and I’ll extradite him back to Cali. Then he can go to jail. Then he can breathe American air. Then we can think about a “second chance.”

  81. You can scratch the runway if I’m allowed to do an airhook maneuver, like the Sergeant Major in THE UNIT or like Batman when he jacked the Chinese guy in TDK.

  82. The idea of watching a 78-year-old man Batmaned out of his Parisian home is pleasing to me. Can you please add an additional member to your team whose sole job is to film the whole thing and upload it to Youtube?

  83. I like the cut of your jib, Jake.

    We’ll need an HD camera, of course, or a 3D camera if you can miniaturize it.

  84. I’ll be the diversion. It shouldn’t be too hard to dress me up like a 15-year-old French girl.

  85. I’ll agree to the 3D but only if you can promise it will not be used subtly or tastefully. I want to be ducking Polanskis left and right.

    I’d still rather just see it in IMAX though I know the camera noise is prohibitive for stealth operations.

  86. As the apparent leader of a new A-Team fighting injustice around the world, I’m pretty proud. But I’m most proud of myself for somehow bringing a rape/pedophilia thread around to Batman, as is necessary in every conversation here.

  87. Wait, we’re fighting injustice? This wasn’t what I signed up for! I just wanted to catapult unsuspecting senior citizens out of their homes. You guys have twisted this whole enterprise into something I can no longer support. You will have to carry on your injustice fighting without me. Call me if you need a slingshot built to launch a 90-year-old.

  88. If you watch THE DEBT, you can see 66 year old Helen Mirren fight an octogenarian Nazi. No one goes violently airborne, I don’t think, but it’s some pretty badass senior citizen fighting.

  89. You make a strong case for THE DEBT, but is the rest of the movie good? I like John Madden (partly for his films and partly for his tireless efforts to bring turducken to the people) but I wasn’t sure if I really needed to see this one in the theater.

  90. Yeah, THE DEBT is an intense movie, excellent all around except that the 1960s version of Helen Mirren played by Jessica Chastain is infuriatingly inexcusably mentally weak for a special ops badass. She cries during a mission. She sorta gets reverse-Stockholm Syndromed by her target/captive. It’s pathetic, but maybe it’s supposed to be a woman-emotion thing that I don’t get because I’m a misogynistic caveman, I dunno. She has the hots for one of her Mossad partners, but he’s too shy to make a move so then I guess she just *had* to hook up with somebody while she was in the mood so she fucks the other guy instead even though she doesn’t seem to like him.

    But the best scenes are when the Israelis are talking through their well-planned, slightly complicated mission. We see & hear everything that they want to do in a very interesting set piece that relies on timing & obscuration via moving objects, which is all awesome, and then a few scenes later they have to execute the plan. But, as they teach you in the US Army, as soon as you get boots on the ground & SP, 90% of the plan goes out the window and you have to improvise to complete the mission. It’s all very exciting, not as tense as the best scenes in MUNICH and not as elaborate as the best parts of the MISSION IMPOSSIBLEs, but better than the A-TEAM and tighter than THE ITALIAN JOB, and all worth watching, even if you wait til the dvd.

  91. I think Vern should start a separate thread for the pedo discussion, maybe PEDO 3D.

    Mouth:

    Is THE DEBT a new movie? I’ve been without tv ads for a while.

  92. Nevermind, i’m an idiot. It’s playing at my cineplex.

  93. Man, I *wondered* what you guys were talking about for 90-odd comments. I feel kinda shallow but I just wanted to say that I remember liking the repeated violence inflicted on the creeper when the girl is at the wheel of the car. If they’d tried anything that smart in Wolf Creek I would have shouted at the TV a lot less.

    Intellectually I appreciate the distinction between the creator and the work, but I didn’t know about Salva’s history when I watched this on video eight or nine years ago and, just as I haven’t watched a Polanksi movie since finding out about the details of his crime, I don’t know if I could watch this one again either.

    Maybe just the bit where she runs it over.

  94. I avoid all Salva talk b/c it creeps me out, and I prefer to neither watch nor think about his movies at all. Unfortunately, I accidentally saw that PEACEFUL WARRIOR movie a few years ago with a bunch of spiritual-y faux zen-seeking Christian people at a public screening with free food (long story). I wasn’t quite, say, actively embarrassed for all involved, but. . . the movie sucked.

  95. If we’re doing a-team I call dibs on faceman. Ladies have been saying I look like Bradley cooper ever since I started wearing a pair of d&g shades I stole from lupe fiasco.

  96. I saw parts of PEACEFUL WARRIOR on tv once, all I remember was that Scotty from Eurotrip was forbidden from having sex with his girlfriend as part of his “training”, what kind of bullshit is that? abstinence is not cool

  97. Wasn’t the Creeper role written with Lance Henriksen in mind? Given the anecdote from NOT BAD FOR A HUMAN where a guy said he had the perfect role for him as a child molestor and how he reacted, I can understand him not taking this part from Salva.

  98. I remember when i was living in LA, I used the app to find nearby registered sex offenders. There was one guy living on Mulholland Drive. His name was Victor Salva.

  99. How did Salva make enough to live there?

  100. Ah, Vern. Perfectly fine with putting money into child-rapers’ pockets. “C’mon! I can still appreciate their art while separating the fact that they like to indelibly scar children with their dicks (or their mouths, or whatever tool is on hand)!” Two things that cannot be forgiven regardless of “debt to society” status – murder and kid-fucking. But I guess I’m a weirdo.

  101. ChocolateJeebus:

    Your namesake is no saint himself. Perhaps you should reconsider your appreciation of Waits.

  102. Chocolate Jeebus – I didn’t put money in his pocket. I avoided his movies, then finally rented the DVD ten years later and admitted it was a good movie but also that it creeped me out because he was a pedophile. I would never put money in his pocket or even touch anywhere on his pants.

    I understand what you’re saying but I think it’s goofy to pass judgment on somebody else for not passing enough judgment on a third party. If I was more cultured I’d be reading classics of literature and looking at visual art from a time when it was normal to enslave people, burn women at the stake and commit genocide against “savages.” There are always gonna be talented artists who do things we find terrible. It’s up to the individual to decide whether that person’s life intrudes into the art too much to enjoy it. In the case of JEEPERS CREEPERS it kind of does which is too bad because it’s a good movie.

    Besides, he already did his time and is apparently registered and behaving himself. What do you want to do, cut his dick off in the end credits outtakes of Jeepers Creepers 3? If that’s what you want then I disagree with your values and will not be able to watch any movies that you make.

    That’s how I feel but if you really insist on being the one guy who draws the exact lines of what art is and is not acceptable for me to partially admit is of good quality then please do all your background checks and email a full list of acceptable works. I have some stuff to work on the next couple days but afterwards I hope to watch some movies and listen to music so please get it to me by the end of the week. Thanks bud.

    pdf is fine

  103. Yeah, I have to temper my disgust for a lot of my favorite cinema artists these days since so many of them signed that letter of support for Polanski’s claim of innocence or undue pursuit by American & Swiss authorities a year or 2 back.
    I have to agree with Kate Harding on all that:
    http://www.salon.com/life/broadsheet/feature/2009/09/28/polanski_arrest/

    http://jezebel.com/5370356/letters-from-hollywood-roman-polanskis-rape-of-child-no-big-thing
    But I’m not about to boycott Aronofsky or Almodovar just b/c they downplay the severity of a crime by a director they presumably admire on some level. I don’t understand the decision to support that shithead, but honestly I’m in no position to pass judgment on him as a shithead either. I make a well-informed choice to distance myself from his work while I side with the prosecutors that want to complete their mission by putting him in front of an American judge again. Makes sense to me, but I can’t let others who disagree with me ruin my ability to be a happy citizen in this same society.

    On Salva, what can I say, I’m no saint, but I choose to keep him & his shit out of sight out of mind. Vern’s historical perspective is truth; it reminds me of how many awesome books/essays/paintings/philosophies were the work of flawed, even relatively monstrous individuals in previous centuries. I’ve done some dubious shit, inflicted some unnecessary pain on people, but I can’t hate myself for it, and I still think I’m a great fucking thinker and a pretty good writer. I love to read my stuff. I’m reading it right now. It’s awesome. I forgive me. But I don’t even think in those terms any longer because I’d rather just not be constantly frustrated with the sensitive ordeal of picking & choosing from only the morally upstanding artists to entertain & enlighten me.

    But I’d appreciate a copy of that pdf anyway, if one of y’all could cc that to me before lunch tomorrow please okaythanksbye.

  104. Wait, so salva did Nature of the Beast? I saw that a long time ago before I knew anything about him. I expected a decent killers in the badlands type of thing but I still remember really disliking the homoeroticism

  105. Remember when Vern said this “so what if you dented your car, forgot to watch felicity, caught having sex with underage girl, whatever. Life goes on.” So what is he perved over someone udnerage made a good movie didn’t he.

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